Creating space for your soul to breathe so you can discern your next right thing.

How to Wait Well

All waiting is not created equal. This I know for sure.

In one way or another we are all waiting for something right now. We go to work and the grocery store, have casual conversations about summer plans and the unseasonable weather. But on the inside, we sit alone in our waiting rooms, always with an eye toward that door that keeps not opening.

It will never make a headline, but with so many of us here it feels important to talk about.

I’ll attempt to put words on the movement that happens within us while we’re busy doing other things. I can’t help it. I’m compelled. So here we go again.

The Kind of Waiting We Talk About

Each morning, we wake to the sound of waves hitting the beach. The kids won’t wake up for hours so we grab coffee and fold up chairs we brought from home, walk down to the shore and face east.

The waiting here is easy. We know that sun will rise.

What a luxury to wait for something to happen that you know will happen. We learned this in kindergarten – to wait in line, wait your turn, wait for Christmas – all those things had the end built in. We understood the exchange. We will have patience, and then we will get our reward in time.

There is growth in this kind of waiting, to be sure. It takes maturity that we aren’t born with to learn to wait for results, outcomes, and the passing of time.

So we make paper chains to count down the days, watch the dough rise through the oven door, set our clocks to wake for when morning finally comes.

This waiting is a function of time and time will always pass.

Still, just because you know the wait will come to an end doesn’t make it easy.

The Kind of Waiting That Sneaks Up On You

Sometimes you don’t realize you’re waiting until you’re almost through it. I would say this is a good thing, except the unawareness of the waiting can often manifest itself in strange ways: irritability, restlessness, or indecision to name a few.

Ask me how I know.

My entire year of 39 I was waiting to turn 40. I didn’t realize it until just before my birthday, but the anxiety, the questions, the second-guessing, the strange new fears — once my birthday passed all of that went with it.

Oh, I realized. I have been holding my breath.

The Kind of Waiting We Don’t Talk About

But what about waiting for results when results aren’t guaranteed?

This is the kind that can break your heart because it doesn’t come with arrows or endpoints.

This kind of waiting is a perpetual bachelor. He shows up in your life a mysterious stranger, giving hints and hopes about the future but never making any promises.

This may or may not be. You’ll just have to wait and see.

The kind of waiting that’s easy to talk about is the kind we can measure in time. And while it’s true we can’t control time or make it tick by faster, at least it has a track record. It will pass.

Some waiting leads only to more waiting. Or worse, builds up then fizzles out.

And this doesn’t mean we aren’t moving. It does mean we may be waiting for something and moving toward something that may never come to be, even while we hope.

On the one hand, this feels like terrible news.

But there is another hand.

The Kind of Wait That Needs to Stop

Once the sun comes up, we make our way back to the beach house, refill our mugs, settle in on the porch and face the waves again, this time from a distance.

The pine trees offer shade from the sun, rising higher in the sky as we read. A squirrel scurries up the skinny trunk in front of us, takes aim at a branch on a nearby tree, flings himself through the air, nearly missing. He lands without falling but not without fanfare.

But the next morning, we see another squirrel do this same routine: climb the skinny trunk, aim toward the branch, fly, nearly miss, catch and continue on with his climb.

It occurs to me that this is either the same squirrel or it’s what they all do in that one spot.

What looks to me like a near miss is actually routine. What seems to be a miscalculation is a regular part of the plan.

Progress looked sloppy and not well-thought out. But it didn’t have to be because that squirrel made that jump every single day.

Maybe that sloppy jump was not a poor decision. Maybe it was the only way across.

For the past two years I’ve been waiting, the kind where you don’t have any guarantees that what you’re waiting for will actually happen.

As much as I could, I cleared the decks. Said no to a lot. Gave myself space to listen for good timing and just rights. I took some deep breaths. I’ve tried to do only the essential.

I entered into this waiting season willingly, anticipating long walks, silent space, listening, and deepening. The deepening has happened to be sure, but not in the ways I expected.

Though I wanted it, this liminal space did not come to me gently. I scheduled the stillness and proceeded to fidget and twitch my way through it. I invited the silence and then interrogated her when she showed up on my doorstep. Why are you here? Why aren’t you saying anything?!

While I’ve cut out a lot of activity, I’m discovering the words of Leighton Ford to be true, that the secret to living in a busy world “is not at the circumference (merely reducing our activities) but at the center (refocusing our heart).”

The particular season of waiting I have been in is coming to a close, I can feel it. In the past few months, I’ve made decisions, turned away from closed doors, taken steps and discerned plans. Here in the middle of a quiet, mostly still summer month, I anticipate the months to come and see they will be different.

There will be new challenges, both creatively and personally.

There will be new partnerships which is not something I enter into naturally or without fear, but am excited for all the same.

Once again, results are not guaranteed.

I want my leaps to be thoughtful, measured, well-planned. Sometimes that works out, but if I wait for that as the only way to move, I may be waiting past my queue.

Sometimes when I think I’m waiting on God, it turns out he’s waiting on me.

Waiting as a Way of Life

As we move through our seasons of waiting, is it possible to learn to wait well?

We traveled to Memphis to spend some time with her last week and for a few minutes on the fourth of July, John asked her a handful of questions and the conversation gently led back to the Lord. It always does with Budder.

We didn’t ask her about waiting, didn’t lead the question. But evidently it’s something she thinks about a lot on her own. As we talked, she said this:

“Everyday I get such a pleasure and a strengthening from a little verse that says, His steps are with you. What I’m trying to make myself do is remember that little verse that says, Wait on the Lord.”

Listen, I’m talking hundreds of messages from you, responding to her words. I’ve since wondered about why it resonated with so many of us.

She’s adorable, quick-witted and remarkably present for 104. She drives, lives by herself, goes to Wal-Mart, teaches 1st graders Sunday school. She is kind of a miracle. Or a unicorn. Or both.

Her husband died of a stroke when he was only 54, leaving her to parent their four boys alone. Budder never remarried, living on her own for the next 55 years. The sorrow she has she carries in secret and if she ever held grudges, she released them decades ago.

I look at her life, a woman who has buried both a husband and a son, lived through two World Wars, seen the election of 18 presidents with all of their triumphs and scandals.

She has lived long and she has lived faithful.

I think that’s what you saw in her. Yes, it’s her personality, her southern accent, and her humor. But mostly, it’s her faith.

We are a generation of tired people, longing to see evidence that what we wait for in secret is worth it.

We believe and want help in our unbelief.

Our souls make quiet work of always scanning for truth. When we find it, the tears spill over and take us by surprise.

What All Waiting Has in Common

Down the road from Budder’s is a house that over 20 million people have visited since it opened to the public: Graceland, the Memphis home of Elvis Presley.

I could tell you about the mirrored staircase, the peacock stained glass in the living room, the oddly delightful jungle room, the spotless 1970s kitchen, but with over 20 million people visiting this house, chances are you’ve seen all that yourself or at least heard about it.

What struck me while walking through the house where Elvis lived is, how in spite of all his achievements, awards, money, accolades, and success, he still died in his upstairs bathroom: young, sick, exhausted, and divorced.

Budder was born twenty-two years before Elvis and has lived forty years passed his death and keeps on going. His whole life fits inside hers, two and a half times.

But when you put aside the legend and pull back the tasseled curtain of the American dream, you’ll see a man who wanted what we all want: to be loved, to be secure, and to belong.

No one is immune. Just some of us have more money, talent, and creative ways of getting what we most deeply long for.

A few miles away from Graceland, Budder sits alone in her house, praying for her family members each night by name. Hers is a life of waiting. For what, I don’t presume to know. But I do know she thinks about it. I also know she brings her waiting into the presence of the Lord.

“And then the one this morning, said the Lord shall take you step by step and supply all your needs. That’s the first thing I do when I wake up. I turn the little light on and read that verse.”

As she spoke, she looked off into the distance. Then she drew one of her hands up toward her face and smiled. Like a little girl. A 104 year old girl.

To live is to wait. We wait for things we know will happen, things we hope will come to be. We wait until the right time and sometimes we don’t realize we’re waiting at all.

Scripture doesn’t say so much about waiting for particular things, outcomes, or circumstances. Instead, we get this:

“The steps of a man are established by the Lord,And He delights in his way.24 When he falls, he will not be hurled headlong,Because the Lord is the One who holds his hand.25 I have been young and now I am old,Yet I have not seen the righteous forsakenOr his descendants begging bread.26 All day long he is gracious and lends,And his descendants are a blessing.”

Psalm 37:23- 26

And also this:

“Wait for the Lord; be strong and let your heart take courage. Yes, wait for the Lord.” Psalm 27:14

Of course our Father would shift our eyes from a plan we hope for to a Person we can hope in.

Isn’t that what he always does?

Here’s what I know: Whatever I put at the center of the wait is what carries all the power. I can’t say that I fully understand what it means to wait upon the Lord but if scripture invites me into it, well then there must be hope in that.

So here’s to you who wait for the measureable things – the birth, the graduation, the answer, the arrival of a friend. Take heart, it will not be like this forever.

To you who continue to wait for things unmeasured, for the healing you’re not sure will come or the love you’re not sure you’ll find. May you find comfort in the presence of our friend Jesus even though you may not have the answers you are looking for.

Do you feel disoriented, discouraged, or unsure but don’t know why? Take a moment to consider if you might be waiting for something you’ve yet to acknowledge. Perhaps just the admission will bring the slightest lift.

Maybe like me you have welcomed a season of listening, of quiet deepening and slow moving. But in some area or another, you wonder if it might be time to move. May you have the courage to take the next right step, no matter how sloppy or unsure.

If you are a human and are seeing this field, please leave it blank.

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Reader Interactions

Comments

As it happens so often when reading your posts, my mind stills and tears form in my eyes as thoughts and feelings I didn’t know I had are written by you and all of a sudden, I feel seen and less alone. Thank you for letting God move through your words into my heart.

Emily, this was rich. Thank you for the time you took to write and give us this gift. My word for 2017 is “Wait”, and so of course, this completely resonated, as did Budder’s words on IG. Budder invites us back to simplicity…with faith, with prayer, with a simple little lamp. She is uncomplicated yet winsome, and in the busyness, loud, performance and image-driven places of social media, she offered a different way. Thank you for giving us that gift! I think of that quote “you have influence right where you are”, and even at 104, Budder still influences.

and P.S. I have been in a season of waiting for a year. I quieted my life down to its bones. I don’t sense it’s time to move on anything quite yet, but sometimes it begins to feel almost indulgent to sit + listen this long. I am glad that you have received some next steps and can’t wait (ha!) to watch your plans unfold.

thank you Emily, for slowing down and taking time to see and to make all these connections; Brought comforting tears to my eyes and also strengthened my heart with gentleness/truth. Thankful for Budder and you.

I married a good man 50 years ago…been “waiting” for him to become a believer in Christ. Have questioned my everchanging attitude while waiting and for my grown children to return to the Lord. My goal at present is for Jesus to be enough. Took great encouragement from your sweet Budder’s words! Thank you.

You have no idea how timely this post was for me and my family as we await answers…. Our precious granddaughter is in PICU (Norah is nearly 11 months old) with an unknown infection. We live several states away and are praying desperately for answers. But we have an unexplained peace as we are trusting the sovereignty of our God. Thank you for sharing, Emily.

Thanks for writing this thoughtful post on waiting. It certainly seems to be a big part of life, and especially of faith. I enjoyed hearing about Budder. I too have two amazing grandmothers; one who lived to be 93 (and also had a husband who died in his 50’s and lost a 6-year old son), and the other who is still living and just celebrated her 99th birthday in March. We can learn so much from these persevering, faithful lives.

I’ve been in waiting periods, and am not quite sure if I’m in one now…..but reading your wise and gentle words is causing me to wonder if perhaps I am. I think in some ways as Christians we are always waiting, along with the whole creation, until everything is restored to right. Seems that waiting is part of the human experience as well.

This was another outstanding post. Tears. Tears. Tears. Thank you for these important words. I love how you classify the “types” of waiting–makes so much sense out of times that sometimes seem to have no sense. Bless you!

Absolutely touched my 70 year old heart! Tears rolled down my cheeks, precious Budder reminded me so much of my sweet Mama who lived to be 95! She lived with us after my wonderful Daddy died in 1998. My Mama died in 2012, but now as I look through old, old family pictures, I think of so many questions I wish I had asked Mama!!!i know our daughter and grandson, he still lives with us and will be 21 in September, they have no interest in all this family “stuff” that I have acquired back to my great granddaddy! Makes me sad that when my husband and I are basking in the Lord’s Glory, they will just throw this away 😢😢😢😢🙄 love your blogs!!!

Emily, as I read your words, I felt like someone handed me a gift bag with one after another tissue-wrapped delights to open. All the waits. Aren’t we always in one of them? Only for us, though really. There is no waiting for God. Each day holds equal purpose.

(Why do I not see any men commenting?) Well, THIS guy will admit he was moved by your words. I discovered years ago that one Hebrew word translated as “wait” is also often translated as “hope.” As one who is currently waiting for something that may never be, you have replenished my hope.

I agree – I didn’t want the post to end either. So many things to sit and ponder about. I appreciate that you take the time to make these longer posts, because they are soul filling. Thank you, thank you! And I just lover Budder. I had a friend whose Granny was so like her and I just adored her. I can tell Budder is such a blessing to her family!

Ahhh, yes and amen! It is such a delight reading your words, Emily. Thank you for sitting in the silence regardless of the discomfort, and allowing it to teach your soul so you can share the wisdom with us. 💓

I took a “break” from working about two years ago. I needed spiritual whitespace to calm myself, be available for dad & get closer to God. It was a great time of quiet & calm. Now I’m back working part-time. it is good, but I find myself craving more white space–to be alone with God.

I’ve been reading your blog for years and never yet left a comment. But this – this struck home. In a season of waiting the Lord has been training my heart to wait on Him first – not on all the things I’m waiting and hoping for. Thank you for sharing your and Budder’s reflections.

I just feel like Ive been waiting nearly all my life. Its been slow and ugly ever since i was 10 hears old. Financial struggle after financial struggle. I was homeless at the age of 7 and slept in a tent for a month then we moved to a homeless shelter. Became homeless again at 19 and the struggle to recover my finances still continues at age 24. I have a dream and it is to serve the Lord but Ive become depressed because my platform has not arrived to do so. I have my associates degree and im looking for a better job but I know that this job cant fulfill me the way living out my purpose will. I keep asking God When Can You Help Me accomplish this but the sluggish pace has depressed me so much that Ive neglected my looks, appetite and overall health. My family and friends cant even lend an ear or emotional support (but i am expected to help THEM) so i am horribly alone spiritually and mentally. Sigh…some prayers would be nice

I will pray for you, Thalia. God lift you and help you. May he open the needed doors for you, and make you brave as you wait on His good and perfect time to accomplish these desires that fill you. Waiting with you!!

Emily, I love your long form posts. This one is so rich! First of all, Budder stole my heart and like those hundreds of others, I was so moved by childlike dependence on the Lord.

Second, the part about what’s at the center of the wait holding all the power. Girl, that sobered me right up, and will be rolling around in my head for a long time. Thank you for this gift of a a post!

As I read through these comments, I realize I am not the only one who is moved to worship by reading your words. You have blessed me more than you will ever know. Your pictures of the beach and sky make me think of something I am waiting for. Thank you for sharing your thoughts and the words of a very special woman of God. Hope you have a blessed weekend. 🙂

I love the picture of Budder looking like a little girl – we are all girls in His kingdom aren’t we – all as excited and loved as Budder knows and lives. Thanks for sharing her and assuring us in the wait.

Thank you…for this precious post. John’s precious grandma reminds me of my Grandma Grace. My dad was one of 9 of her children. Grace suited her and she always spoke of Jesus and His Word until she left peacefully at age 94.
I have been waiting for a long while and hoping. Your blog was so sweet and encouraging. Beautifully written. 🙂

“Our souls make quiet work of always scanning for truth. When we find it, the tears spill over and take us by surprise.” You know how I am about tears and crying and doing it all the dang time. But this little nugget is a big piece of truth that speaks to my heart. You tell us to pay attention to our tears and this right here explains what so many of mine mean. Thank you for sharing all of this, friend.

Ever since I read my first book of yours. “Simply Tuesday” I have been a fan. Your writing is like an artist with just the right colors and brush strokes. Thank you for perspective, insight and inspiration.

Emily, beautiful. Just beautiful, Thankyou. Like others, I love this long prose. We are deep in a season of waiting and you just helped me take thought/ soul steps on a restorative journey back to where I needed to be. Thanks for all you’ve modelled for me – Nikki x

Thank you for this. Thank you for the reminder that God is faithful whether I am sloppy or not. I waited 20 years for a husband, but God answered. He blessed us with one son, and we have been praying for a second one. The second one doesn’t seem to be coming. My husband and I committed to pray every day of this year 2017 for the Lord’s will to be done. For His plan to shape our lives not the hope of another child. Our first child is such a treasure and delight, I missed many days of his second year because my focus was not on God but on the hope of the next child. I have just completed a 10 week stint of intentional resting and slowing, and thus I could relate to much of this post. I have been reading a book called Sacred Waiting by David Timms and it has utterly given me hope in waiting when I thought I never could again. The Lord is so faithful to meet us right where we are.

So I am trying not to sit here and ugly cry at the kitchen table. My husband is sitting beside me, and I’m afraid it would make him think something is terribly wrong. But in actuality, something is so gloriously right.

I will not gush on and on about how much your words – about Budder, about Elvis, about waiting, about placing Jesus at the center of my wait – have resonated with me this morning. I will simply say my dropping by was a God appointment. And I’m so glad He led me here today.

Thank you for being a woman who presses in deep and then types out what her heart finds.

I’m a little over 3 1/2 years of waiting. When you posted about Budder, hearing ‘wait for the Lord’ was the first of a few times that very week I heard or read those words. They are underlined all over my bible from years of struggle with anxiety – like, 44 years of it. But that week I kept hearing it and those words gave me comfort like no other time. I’m still waiting. It’s not fun but it just is so I wait and try to wait well.

Wow. Wow! This is my favorite I do believe. Thank you for sharing such a personal life with personal insight with us personally. That’s how I feel. And I know the Lord is pleased. Bless your Budder in Heaven. I look forward to your posts and the way you touch the heart and soul Emily. Thank you.

You are such a precious gift to us all. Your words flow like honey over my soul..gently, softly..allowing me to take them in and befriend them. Thank you, Emily, for being part of my life and giving me the opportunity to be part of yours as well. <3